B-Reel

B-Reel is a member of the B-Reel Group, housing both B-Reel the agency and B-Reel Films.

B-Reel

B-Reel is an international creative agency working globally with offices in Stockholm, London, Los Angeles, New York, and Barcelona offering strategy, design, branding, positioning, digital, traditional and new media advertising services.

B-Reel Films

B-Reel Films (BRF) is a modern production company offering commercials, branded entertainment, music videos, VR, TV and feature films.

History

Anders Wahlquist, Fredrik Heinig, Johannes Åhlund, Pelle Nilsson and Petter Westlund^[1] founded B-Reel in 1999 in Stockholm, Sweden.^[2] At the time Åhlund and Heinig were running the television commercial production company Spader Knekt (later renamed St Paul). A-Com was also a founding partner, but left the company in 2001. The two related companies, Spader Knekt and B-Reel worked side by side for several years. The two companies merged and operated under the moniker of B-Reel. B-Reel opened an office in New York, USA, 2007, expanding to London, UK, in 2008 and established an office in Los Angeles, USA, 2010. In 2013, B-Reel opened two new European offices: one in Berlin, Germany and the other in Barcelona, Spain. The company has grown organically since its inception.

Awards and recognition

Forbes Magazine named B-Reel #37 on America’s Most Promising Company list of 2013. In 2012 advertising industry trade publication “Creativity Magazine” recognized B-Reel in its “Production Company A-List,” while in 2011 Creativity Magazine dubbed B-Reel “Production Company of the Year.” In 2010 Creativity named B-Reel “No 1 Digital Production Company in the world.”

In 2012, B-Reel was named "The Company That's Changing Advertising" by Inc Magazine. Also in 2012 B-Reel entered the website magazine “FWA” (Favorite Website Awards) hall of fame as the first company to attain 100 FWA awards. The same year B-Reel’s “Ariel Fashion Shoot” experiential installation project received a Gold European Excellence Award, AICP Next Award, and a Bronze Cannes Lions.

For its high-profile work on "The Beauty Inside," a Facebook-based miniseries for Toshiba and Intel, B-Reel was honored with three 2013 Grand Prix’ at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival, as well as 2013 ADC (Art Directors Club) and One Show awards, an Emmy, a D&AD Black Pencil, the Grand Clio, Best in Show at the interactive conference SXSW, a United Nations Award and New York Festivals awards.

B-Reel’s project for Google Web Lab won prizes at SXSW, FITC, Cannes Lions and the People's choice in the Webby Awards in 2013, while its “The Chase 360” project for Volvo won the Eurobest Grand Prix.

In 2017 B-Reel was awarded a Cannes Lions gold for its Gorillaz App for virtual band Gorillaz. Following Cannes the company was awarded at the Clios with a Grand Clio in Music and three music golds for the Gorillaz work, as well as two silvers and a bronze Clio. Also in 2017 B-Reel was named on the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies list for the second year in a row.

In 2018 B-Reel was named as one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies, charted in the Gunn Report, and Chief Creative Officer Petter Westlund was named among AdWeek's Creative 100.

Notable projects in integrated marketing

The Wilderness Downtown is an interactive music experience for Arcade Fire's song We Used To Wait. It was included in Time Magazine's list of the 30 best music videos.^[3]

The Beauty Inside is a 2012 social film for Intel and Toshiba, their second social film since releasing Inside in 2011. Directed by Drake Doremus and starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Topher Grace alongside a Facebook-cast group of characters. The film is broken up into six filmed episodes interspersed with interactive storytelling that all takes place on the main character's Facebook timeline. Deemed as Hollywood's first social film, this innovative storytelling format gave everyone in the audience a chance to play the (ever changing) lead role throughout the story.

MTV Bump is a digital platform created and developed by B-Reel to allow user-generated content to air on live TV. Via social media platforms, users create 5-15 second interstitial "bumps" which air between commercials. MTV Bump rolled out in 119 markets and users have generated thousands of hours of live-aired bumps.

Google Pixel Wallpapers are dynamic wallpapers created exclusively for the Google Pixel phone. A total of 32 live wallpapers, the interactive backgrounds span from touch reactive to live geo-data of the earth's positioning. Google Pixel wallpapers were awarded a silver lion at Cannes Lions and a gold Clio.

Gorillaz App is a mixed-reality experience created to launch the 6th Gorillaz studio album Humanz. The free app invited users in to the Spirit House - the home of the Gorillaz according to the band's lore. There, via AR, VR, and 360 components, guests in the Spirit House were free to explore song lyrics, excluvise downloads, and post to social media. Ahead of the launch of Humanz, the app directed fans to one of 500 worldwide geo-tagged listening parites, where together they could stream the full album 2 days before the official drop. Gorillaz app won a gold at Cannes Lions and was awarded a Grand Clio in Music.

References

External links

• B-Reel
• B-Reel Films